Posted
by
timothy
on Monday November 09, 2009 @07:55AM
from the unlimited-and-5GB-are-not-the-same dept.

Pickens writes "Tom Bradley reports in PC World that the new Motorola Droid smartphone will cost users $199.99 with a 2-year contract, with an additional $30 per month for the mandatory 'unlimited' data plan that has a monthly cap of 5Gb. Verizon will charge $50 for each additional gigabyte over the 5Gb limit on the unlimited data plan. Verizon has confirmed that tethering will cost another $30 per month for an additional unlimited data plan that is also limited to 5Gb. If you want tethering you will pay $60 above and beyond the monthly contract for service for an 'unlimited' 10Gb of data per month, and if you plan on connecting with an Microsoft Exchange email account you have to pay another $15 a month. 'Verizon seems to be doing everything it can to make the Droid as unappealing as possible by nickel and diming customers so that actually using it is not cost-effective,' writes Bradley. 'After all of the hype around Verizon's marketing efforts, and generally favorable reviews of the Motorola Droid, users that rush out to get the new device may be in for a shock.' Droid users will have to wait until sometime in 2010 for tethering. 'That service is on our schedule for next year,' says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. The delay is because 'the service has to be tested on the phone so until we know it works, we don't offer the service. It is not uncommon for us to introduce the phone and continue to test the service and offer it later.'"

so now I'm wondering why is this added tethering cost a big deal when the phone/service to beat is the iPhone and they don't have the tethering option? Just last weekend, an iPhone user told me he jailbroke his iPhone and tethers it and IIRC, he already pays around $70/mon to use that phone. And really, $30 for 5 GB( it is Bytes, not bits ) and who would _not_ expect them to charge more for tethering if that really was an option?Now where's the link to all the 3G carriers who allow tethering and how much t

Oh, I should note that there is not additional fee to use ActiveSync on AT&T's network either. I'm really surprised Verizon is going to try and nickel and dime on that aspect.

I'm also curious as to what the 'base' cost of the droid will be monthly on Verizon? $60 bucks is expensive on AT&T, but covers the basics cell/data (no tethering and texts optional). I wonder how the two stack up? From what I'm reading, it will be $60 dollars for the 'unlimited' limited 10GB plan, on top of the monthly base ch

Second, tethering isn't supported for most smartphone plans on the major networks. You want it on your iphone, too bad. The iphone itself supports it (as does Droid obviously) and AT&T doesn't. Well, apparently they will, but they will charge extra, just like Verizon. (http://mashable.c

couldn't some group of americans sue the shit out of dumbass companies who use misleading marketing - calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.

couldn't some group of americans sue the shit out of dumbass companies who use misleading marketing - calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.

What if a customer agrees to pay the bill subject to a 5 dollar a month fair billing policy?

I am a Verizon Wireless customer. They make "horrible customer service" sound like something to aspire to.

They haven't been able to get my bill "right" for months. Every single month there are random charges tacked on, that they cannot explain when I call. Until recently, they've cancelled these charges with good apology. But now?

I have two phones suspended because they are lost. Originally, I was told I could suspend them indefinitely. Then I was told that I could only suspend them month-by-month. Then I was was told I could suspend them three months at a time. Now, they're telling me that I can only suspend 6 months per year.

So I decided to buy out the contract. They're charging me for two months' service for two phones I don't even have. And they're charging me for an entire month of service for both of those two phones AFTER the contract has been cancelled!

If you are ever, EVER tempted to go Verizon, RUN LIKE HELL OUT OF THERE. They make a pack of lying vultures seem friendly!

That was tried in the UK with ADSL providers advertising "unlimited" broadband. They got around it by reclassifying exactly what is unlimited - it is now "unlimited access" so at any time 24/7/365.25 you can have access, but it isn't unlimited bandwidth.

Sue all you like - they'll find a loop-hole somewhere and the only people to really gain will be the lawyers.

The only real way to fix the current advertising problems is to educate the general public to not fall for stupendously unrealistic claims in advertising - unfortunately the general public seem somewhat immune to the effects of such education probably because critical thinking doesn't appear to be fashionable.

That was tried in the UK with ADSL providers advertising "unlimited" broadband. They got around it by reclassifying exactly what is unlimited - it is now "unlimited access" so at any time 24/7/365.25 you can have access, but it isn't unlimited bandwidth.

Except that the website does not advertise "unlimited access". The text on the website reads, and I quote, "Unlimited Data for Mobile Web and Get it Now/Media Center".

It says quite clearly, "unlimited data". I know that Verizon [and the other telcos] will happily fight and say there's fine print somewhere that says otherwise, but please, there *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough to get a judge to realize that this is nothing but false advertising, and some pretty obvious bait-and-switch tactics.

They are called "Mobile Web" and "GetItNow" because they are "custom connections", neither are traditional broadband connections and are subject to the rules the "offerer" decides to apply. Smoke and mirrors and half-truths, sure. That's what they do.

That's why the Droid marketing was so short on facts and details before the release, they're playing it so the emotional consumers will buy it up before they realize they're getting gouged every month for the next two years(or pay the $300+ termination). Sue all you want, the lawyers will take your money faster than VZW will... hard to believe, but true.

Fair catch. But win this one in court and then they just point out that it says nothing about guaranteed rates. Used more then 1Gb? 1Kbyte/sec maximum it is for you then.

Which is still an improvement. Going from outright lying to just being slimy is much better than we've got in the right now. Unlike jolly old england, we don't actually have an agency currently enforcing truth standards in advertisements.

Oh goody, so instead of the stress of a lawsuit with a huge telco, I wait 3 years and get a coupon good for "$10 off my next Verizon phone purchase", while the law firm makes $50M in fees and contingency?

Oh goody, so instead of the stress of a lawsuit with a huge telco, I wait 3 years and get a coupon good for "$10 off my next Verizon phone purchase", while the law firm makes $50M in fees and contingency?

Color me unexcited.

I think you may be completely missing the point of a lawsuit like this. That's... disheartening.

I see Slashdotters rant and rave about how companies use lawsuits as revenue streams, and yet here we have a comment that shows no interest in a lawsuit that doesn't result in a significant personal gain.

It could be ground for class action. "Unlimited" and "10GB limit" are mutually exclusive. This is deceptive marketing. Isn't that bad enough that we still have to pay to receive phone calls and text messages?

$60/month total for a 5GB tethering plan? Same as AT&T. (Note, last I checked, there was no official support whatsoever for iPhone tethering.)

FYI I am an AT&T customer, and left VZW two years ago a very unhappy customer, but the summary is unjustly misworded to paint VZW extremely negatively when in reality their data pricing is no different than AT&T. (Which is an improvement, VZW's data pricing used to be AWFUL compared to AT&T.)

well if you are happy with these plans fair enough, but here in Ireland I'm paying 20 a month for 15gb hspda and can use it for what I want. even on a pay as you go no contract deal its 25 for 10gb a month.

regular broadband plans cost about 50 if you take in the line rental.

Admit it the American telco's are ripping you off and stop apologizing for their abusive behaviour

There are four major ones, nearly everyone else is a reseller of the four.

The four are split 50/50 into two technology camps: Verizon and Sprint use Qualcomm CDMA2000, AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM/UMTS.

Of each of the technology camps, there's one "big boy" and one "small fry" provider. The "big boys" (AT&T and Verizon) have relatively expensive service plans, however they also have quite comprehensive coverage even in rural areas. The "small fry" have cheap service plans, but pitiful coverage areas. For example, T-Mobile users get zero coverage for 15-20 miles of highway west of Vestal, NY, including where I live and work (Owego). AT&T and Verizon, however, have very strong coverage in all areas around Owego, despite it being a relatively small rural town.

Here's the background:
I have a Verizon unlimited data plan in the U.S. and recently crossed the border to Canada. Prior to crossing the border I called customer service to find out what rates I'd be paying for voice and data. The data rate I was quoted was ".002 cents per kilobyte."
I was surprised at the rate so I confirmed it with the representative I spoke to, and she confirmed it "point zero zero two cents per kilobyte." I asked her to note that in my account.

If the plan is limited, it's not "unlimited", so please stop pretending. No, any cap is a cap is not no cap is not "unlimited". How many marketeers do you need to fire to stop believing otherwise, verizon?

Of course not. We let the market decide, because in our faith, consumers have the time and ability to be perfectly rational and omniscent in the economic sense. Any time a consumer is decieved, it's because they have sinned, and so they deserve it. To stand in the way of the invisible hand is to deny the will of God (or society, or something)...:)

The goal is prevention rather than punishment, reflecting the purpose of civil law in setting things right rather than that of criminal law. The typical sanction is to order the advertiser to stop its illegal acts, or to include disclosure of additional information that serves to avoid the chance of deception. Corrective advertising may be mandated. But there are no fines or prison time except for the infrequent instances when an advertiser refuses to stop despite being ordered to do so. [emphasis added]

So, kind of like a police officer running after a purse-snatcher yelling, "Stop! Or I'll yell stop again!"

This isn't new: these terms are exactly the same as Verizon's current plans for Blackberry service. $30/month for the smartphone "data plan", plus an extra $30/month for tethering. And yes, they've always called it "unlimited", but it's always been capped at 5GB. I've been paying these rates for some time. It's annoying, but it's been going on for ages.

It's amusing to me that people are only getting outraged about this now because Verizon is selling a popular new phone that everyone wants to buy.

Actually, all "unlimited" plans are limited. Just multiply maximum bandwidth by days in the month to figure out your monthly cap.

While you're technically correct, I don't think that most people understand "unlimited" to mean "infinite." I wouldn't say that I have "limited" water at home, even though, yes, technically, I can only fill a finite number of buckets in a month.

There's a big difference between "we're cutting you off" and "you can have as much as we can physically give you."

Pretty much. My fiancee and I will be combining our accounts next spring (she has AT&T, I have Verizon), and AT&T is sort of our default because both of our families use AT&T. We want smart phones, not necessarily the iPhone, and I was excited about the Droid. I should have expected that Verizon would come up with an 'unlimited' but capped at 5 GB plan. Guess it'll be the iPhone after all.

I really do want to be able to tether, because we occasionally travel and don't have WiFi access and I want to use the laptop. But I've survived this long without tethering, and a smart phone will be enough for light web browsing and email.

Come a few months, this isn't going to be the situation. This is a highly deregulated industry, prices like these don't work in the longterm. You be patient for a few months and competition will drive it all down and you'll have the luxury of a choice.

In a deregulated industry will keep prices high if the barrier to entry into that industry is high as well. For cell phone providers the barrier to entry is really high since it costs millions to buy spectrum and billions to buy and install cell towers.

Yea, you can lease time from the already installed towers, but again it's really expensive and since those who run the towers also provide end-user service so they can dictate the terms to the renting providers and don't really care if you lose money or not

I should have expected that Verizon would come up with an 'unlimited' but capped at 5 GB plan. Guess it'll be the iPhone after all.

I really do want to be able to tether, because we occasionally travel and don't have WiFi access and I want to use the laptop. But I've survived this long without tethering, and a smart phone will be enough for light web browsing and email.

Light web browsing and email isn't going to come close to 5 GB per month. I use my G1 for email, web browsing, maps, RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and internet radio, and it adds up to less than 1 GB per month.

Just out of curiosity, how can a wireless company tell whether or not you're tethering, when you run a device that can run pretty much any sort of software? Also, is a wireless proxy considered tethering? It seems to be quirte ridiculous to charge for a specific amount of bandwidth and then not let you actually use it.

Depends on how locked down the device is. If they control the software, they can get a message whenever you use the bluetooth DUN profile, or just disable it if you don't pay the fee. The AUP for my phone plan (T-Mobile UK) prohibits IM and tethering, but they've never complained when I used a Jabber client on my laptop via my phone. They could also use IP stack fingerprinting, which isn't 100% reliable but may be good enough to spot a Symbian, Blackberry, or iPhone stack.

AT&T enforces tethering fees on WinMo by locking the "internet sharing" app to use a different GPRS APN than the phone itself uses. No extra $, no access to the magic APN, no tethering. Of course, if you buy an unlocked (ie unbranded retail, not SIM-unlocked AT&T) WinMo phone, you can just configure internet sharing to use the usual APN, and everything is hunky dory.

With Droid I'd imagine it'll be easier. There are already several tethering solutions for G1 that should work just as well for Droi

The simple solution for most stuff is Browser ID strings and in some cases, MAC address prefixes. I know that in the UK, I could convince the O2 cloud to let me surf the web using wifi from my laptop on my free iPhone bandwidth simply by changing my laptop MAC address and browser ID to be mobile safari.

I'm not sure how they would detect other apps, but as soon as you fire up a standard browser, it would be pretty easy to spot if you haven't changed this.

One of my friends unlocked his Blackberry and enabled tethering without paying Verizon the tethering fee. He was playing MMOs via the phone's internet connection and this lasted for about half a month before Verizon noticed and disconnected him. When he opened up a web browser they showed him a message telling him that he was tethering without paying for it and offered to re-enable it for a few dollars a month. All he had to do was click "ok" and it automatically added tethering to his bill and re-enabled the access instantly.

They are doing something to track if you are tethering and not paying for, possibly just by watching the usage and what kinds of things you are doing (for example - WoW packets showing up on the phone automatically means tethering since the phone itself isn't capable of playing World of Warcraft).

1) the PC will pass it;s MAC address through the device. This can easily be detected.2) Android does not his update.microsoft.com, nor an AV update site, nor half a dozed other IPs and services that are rediculously difficult to prevent your PC from communicating with.3) "browser type" is not the android default on your PC.4) simple software that's part of the bridged network adapter "tells" them it's being tethered, and tracks the data through each interface seperately.5) downloading

I should have expected that Verizon would come up with an 'unlimited' but capped at 5 GB plan. Guess it'll be the iPhone after all.

So you don't want to get the Droid, because Verizon is evil and calls their plan unlimited when it's really 5 GB/month. Fair enough. Then, you decide to turn to the iPhone, where Apple pulls apps because they dare to compete with AT&T? I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're trading one evil master for another, not getting a better situation.

This doesn't sound like that big a deal to me, except for the delay in actually delivering the service. I would see $60/month for 10GB as a pretty competitive plan. After all, I wouldn't think too many people would be using this as their primary means of internet access, and for speed reasons I doubt people are going to want it much for torrents or things of that nature, so why worry about a cap of 10 GB/mo? If I had the money right now, which I don't, and if this weren't Verizon, which I hate for other rea

Data is cheaper in bulk, but I probably won't us that much data. I'd certainly use more than 15MB if it was both cheap and convenient; the web browser on the Droid's better, I can download MP3s from Amazon, and I may not always have Wifi access, so I might find 1GB/mo at $6/mo reasonable. However, as I can break 800 text messages easy and the difference between 1000 and Infinite is $5, it's likely I'd be paying $60 + $30 now(!), nevermind my $60/mo bill somehow costs me $80/mo.

Looking at my bill, I pay almost $15/mo for data; 2mb of data, and $10 for owning the VZNavigator app. As the Droid will give me a mapping utility that should replace VZNavigator, plus unlimited data, I should lose that $15... so my bill should drop to $72 plus the $30... $102/mo.

By the way, 1112 text messages, plus 336 within Verizon's network, plus 86 picture messages. That 1000/mo for $15? Not doable. It's either $40 + $20 for 5000, or $60 for unlimited. Yes, it costs the same to get INFINITE texts/pics as it does to get 5000.

Mod Parent Up. This is exactly correct, and exactly how service is set up for Blackberries on the Verizon network.
The data plan is unlimited for data used from the phone, it's the tethering that has the 5gb limit on it.
There are also ways around VZW's tethering fee, there are many programs available that can use the phone's own net connection as a proxy an allow tethering, rather than using the "official" tethering method. Such as PDANet for Windows phones (and Android, I believe) and TetherBerry for

How are Verizon getting away with calling a plan with a 5GB cap unlimited? Where I'm from there are laws against that.
What, unlimited as long as your credit card is unlimited too? That dog won't hunt mont senior.

So does that mean that you can only get a Droid telephone with a verizon account?

If so, there's your problem: your markets for mobile telecom are vendor-locked, and thus not very free. Say what you might about the EU, they really whipped the mobile telco's into submission and as such, we don't have a system where your phone is branded by the telco. Incidentally, Apple is trying to push such a model to Europe, but people here are not buying into it.

If not so, what's the big deal? Just buy the droid and don't choose Verizon as your provider.

Part of the problem is that the US carriers use different technologies. Two carriers (AT&T, T-mobile) use GSM. Verizon uses CDMA. So, even if the phone weren't locked to the Verizon network, you couldn't take it to either of the others.

T-Mo and AT&T both use GSM and are pretty good about SIM-unlocking their phones. (In general both will provide a SIM unlock if you've been a customer in good standing, meaning bills paid, for 90 days.)

That said, there are enough differences between the bands they use that I wish you luck in using a T-Mo phone on AT&T or an AT&T phone on T-Mo, unless you enjoy the pain and suffering of EDGE data. I do not know of a single phone on this planet that does UMTS in all three of the bands used for it in the USA.

If not so, what's the big deal? Just buy the droid and don't choose Verizon as your provider.

While in theory Sprint and Verizon phones will interoperate, in practice both vendors have a long history of refusing to warm up a competitor's phone. This is incredibly stupid of them, because they actually charge you for a phone upgrade in your phone bill every year, and if you don't get one they just pocket the money, but it's still how they do business. (Numerous people are counterexamples... they are not very numerous, however.) In any case, neither one is GSM, so if you buy a phone from either the onl

Here in the US, the Droid is a CDMA/EVDO variant, which means it is only capable of operating on two carriers - Verizon Wireless and Sprint. Verizon can basically charge whatever fees they want, as they do have the largest 3G network in the US. Verizon works in remote areas better than any other carrier. Verizon also has the Droid device locked to their network.

It is possible to buy an unlocked Motorola Milestone and use it in the US, but that would only gain you 3G access on AT&T Wireless and not T-Mobile. T-Mobile uses a different 3G band than the rest of the known GSM world.

Remember, we don't have to protect consumers or competition in the US, only our large corporations bank accounts. I do wish we had Europe's model though. I noticed how great it was when I was in London for a few weeks.

Anything less than tri-band GSM is unheard of. Quad-band GSM (All 2.5G bands in USA and Europe) is pretty common.

Tri-band UMTS is rarer, but now to achieve compatibility with all providers you would need quad-band UMTS. (2 for AT&T, 1 for T-Mo USA and 1-2 Korean or Japanese providers, 1 for the rest of the world) I have yet to see a quadband UMTS device.

Verizon is born of an unholy alliance of old baby bells. Bell-Atlantic and a few others. All the management and culture of that company dates back to the days when they were the monopoly, and they still are as far as wired access to homes are concerned. They are the kind of company that will bribe the lawmakers to outlaw municipal wi-fi networks even in small towns that they will never ever offer broadband other than some flaky version of DSL with 728Kbps service. Way back when that socialist Indira Gandhi

This simplifies things a lot for AT&T (who still hasn't introduced tethering for the iPhone): All they have to do to get back on the high horse is come up with a better pricing plan than Verizon's and have the service available in the next couple of months. Even AT&T can potentially pull that off.

As for the Exchange data plan - both Verizon and AT&T already do this on paper for smartphones, but that's the "corporate" data plan. On all the phones I've seen (for both networks) it doesn't actually matter - if your phone supports ActiveSync and you have a personal account it still works fine.

The leadoff negative point about the droid is that he doesn't like the way the back of the phone looks because you can see the battery cover. Come on, that's ridiculous. Most of use the front of the phone.

The reviewer seems a little clueless. Seriously he thinks learning programming in java is harder than using javascript css and html? And he tells developers to run (from android) based on his opinion of a single phone? Seriously? I think he lacks a basic understanding of the phone market.

Am I reading this right? They call the 5GB a month plan "unlimited", and charge $50 PER additional gigabyte (when they were perfectly willing to accept $6/gigabyte before you went over the limit)

Why don't they control usage another way? Say, if you go over 5GB a month, your data rates get slashed to 1/5 or 1/10 the normal speed, and the phone gives you an OPTION to pay an additional fee if you want your full speed restored. I actually think a cap is a good thing FOR PHONES because radio spectrum is a finite resource. Verizon only owns so much spectrum, and using current modulation technology, can only send so much data through the air in a particular cell at one time. There are high tech ways around this problem, but they cost a lot of money, and heavy users should pay more.

But they way they are doing this is just a trap basically. I bet the phone doesn't even tell you if you go over the limit, unless you look in some deeply buried menu. They are just setting you up for a huge bill during that one month when you actually use the phone's internet capabilities to their full potential.

And the phone had so much promise. They say the screen kicks the ass of the iphone, and that the CALL QUALITY is vastly clearer and better. I believe it - I had a CDMA phone years ago, and I recall it being nearly as clear and stable a connection as a land-line. Darn nokia phone would work everywhere as well. I've never, ever gotten service this good through ATT.

I actually think a cap is a good thing FOR PHONES because radio spectrum is a finite resource.

it's fine if you don't advertise as unlimited. That's fraud. Why it is protected when cellphone companies do it, I don't know.

I believe it - I had a CDMA phone years ago, and I recall it being nearly as clear and stable a connection as a land-line.

It has nothing to do with ATT vs. Verizon or GSM vs. CDMA, it's all about your phone. My RAZR V3i gave better call quality than my V500 upg. to V600 (or wtfever it was exactly, I lent my backup phone to someone who destroyed it.)

Am I reading this right? They call the 5GB a month plan "unlimited", and charge $50 PER additional gigabyte (when they were perfectly willing to accept $6/gigabyte before you went over the limit)

Why don't they control usage another way? Say, if you go over 5GB a month, your data rates get slashed to 1/5 or 1/10 the normal speed, and the phone gives you an OPTION to pay an additional fee if you want your full speed restored. I actually think a cap is a good thing FOR PHONES because radio spectrum is a finite resource. Verizon only owns so much spectrum, and using current modulation technology, can only send so much data through the air in a particular cell at one time. There are high tech ways around this problem, but they cost a lot of money, and heavy users should pay more.

But they way they are doing this is just a trap basically. I bet the phone doesn't even tell you if you go over the limit, unless you look in some deeply buried menu. They are just setting you up for a huge bill during that one month when you actually use the phone's internet capabilities to their full potential.

And the phone had so much promise. They say the screen kicks the ass of the iphone, and that the CALL QUALITY is vastly clearer and better. I believe it - I had a CDMA phone years ago, and I recall it being nearly as clear and stable a connection as a land-line. Darn nokia phone would work everywhere as well. I've never, ever gotten service this good through ATT.

Actually the article says 5Gb's not 5GB's like every one is saying. If it was 5GB's it wouldn't be too bad but as it stands now the 5Gb's comes out to a little over 1/2 GB's, which is terrible.

And people will still pay this extortionist price because they absolutely must have the latest electronic crack pipe available. Suckers. People will never learn, at least here in the USA that the only way to force companies not to do this shit is to stop paying them to do it.

My wife and I pay about $119/month for "unlimited" data and 200 text messages each per iPhone. We get no reliable signal in most of Virginia past Prince William County unless we are on a major state highway. There are places where Verizon would be 5 bars that AT&T doesn't even get signal at all, and by that I mean not even Edge.

The moral of the story? You get what you pay for. Verizon may be more expensive, but AT&T is a perfect example of what happens when a telecom doesn't plan ahead for getting the kind of revenue it needs to really build out its network. I wasn't very happy with Verizon's customer service, or their phone selection a year ago, but they obviously put that money SOMEWHERE good since I can't remember any place other than inside the Luray and Skyline caverns where my phone didn't get a signal with Verizon...

Verizon charges "corporate" customers an extra $15/mo to access "corporate" (aka Exchange) email. This is true with all of their smartphones and is similar in pricing to what ATT & Sprint charge. Personal accounts can access Exchange w/o any additional charges.

Verizon charges "corporate" customers an extra $15/mo to access "corporate" (aka Exchange) email. This is true with all of their smartphones and is similar in pricing to what ATT & Sprint charge. Personal accounts can access Exchange w/o any additional charges.

Maybe because they know that anyone who uses exchange for email is 1) a big company and 2) doesn't care about money.

That's not quite right. Verizon doesn't provide Exchange accounts AFAIK. The extra $15 dollars is if you are on a business account. This comes from friends who are Verizon sales monkeys, but I Googled it too for you Citation Provided.

$30 for personal data plan. You can Exchange all you like.$45 for corp data plan. You can Exchange all you like.

+$30 more for tethering. For me, not worth it, since there is secured-wifi literally everywhere I go on a regular basis. YMMV

The data plan is, in fact, unlimited. I go over 5 GB a month on my current Verizon phone regularly. This is no different. Tethering specifically has a 5 GB limit which is stated in the contract for it. There are also readily available hacks to make tethering work on an Android phone.

Indeed - almost all of the cell providers should be fined for deceptive trade practices the way they sucker people into huge bills - all agreed to in fine print.

All of this would be fixed by a very simple law - anybody ought to be able to set a limit on their monthly bill. If I call up evilphoneco and tell them that my cell phone bill is capped at $90 per month, then I don't care WHAT services I consume - they can't charge me more than $90 per month. It is their job to keep me from using services I haven't paid for - not my job to avoid accidentally incurring them. And no incurring of debts either - if they deliver me $10k worth of services they can bill me $90 once and then we're even.

Oh, the second part of that law would be that everybody's cap starts out at whatever their basic monthly rate is. Unless somebody specifically requests a higher limit they couldn't be charged for any "optional" services.

And no giving people limited choices like $10/month or unlimited only. People should be able to name their own limits as arbitrarily as they'd like.

It seems like phone companies depend on people making $500 mistakes with their cell phones, and they almost count on people doing it. They get zero mercy when it happens. At best they might be offered an option for $10 per month to cap their bill. That should NOT be something that costs money.

Or you can just use any unlocked Symbian phone on a GSM carrier and tether it to your heart's content. And in most places other than the US, that's exactly what you're supposed to do. You know, $30/month 5Gbyte data plans and all that.

Mind you, Symbian sucks as a phone OS compared to Android, but Android really needs to get Symbian-like tethering. And Verizon's data plans are laughably expensive.

This crap has been circling the web and it's not completely accurate. With the $30 [verizonwireless.com] and $45 [verizonwireless.com] data plans for smartphones, you get unlimited data for the phone itself [vzw.com]. If you want to tether, it's an additional $30 for the $30 plan or $15 for the $45 plan and will allow you 5GB of tethered data and unlimited on the phone. In any case, if you want to tether and be within their TOS, you need to pay $60. It's still possible to tether without the extra cost and their software, it's just not within their TOS

The difference between the $30 and $45 data plan isn't documented well and leads to a lot of confusion. I fault VZW for not getting this strait. All the $45 gets you is access their WirelessSync service and supposedly allow you to do Exchange ActiveSync within the TOS. The $30 plan CAN DO Exchange ActiveSync, but it's supposedly not ok within their poorly documented TOS and every VZW employee will tell you that you need the $45 plan if you're going to do Exchange ActiveSync.

If you do use a lot of data on your phone, VZW can cancel your data account according to their TOS. I've used >5GB/month without a peep from VZW and any additional charge on my bill. It has been said in HoFo, if the data usage is extreme by VZW opionion, they could consider that your must be doing something that's violating the TOS. If VZW was smart, they wouldn't do much canceling since they're launching a bunch of Android phones and saying streaming YouTube and music is ok, which obviously will soak up a lot of bandwidth.

I suggest that Pickens and the article author do some fact checking before publishing assumptions and hearsay.

I played with one at Sam's Club over the weekend. The keyboard sucks. It'll probably be a flop until they make a new keyboard. Maybe I'm wrong, but I spent like 3 seconds playing with it and HATED it. That was all I needed.

I'm convinced PC World has it out for the Droid and has only been carrying negative articles about it. This article is particularly misleading. First of all, the unlimited phone data plan IS unlimited - it's the tethering, WAN card, Mifi, etc plans that are limited to 5GB a month. Just head over to the Verizon website and check out the fine print. Now the catch is if they think you're tethering without a tether plan (which is really easy to do) they'll charge you for tethering. So if you use 10GB a month of phone data (which, lets be honest here, is not realistic using just your phone) they'll hit you for tethering.

Next, the $15 a month for Exchange is if you're an enterprise customer. I'm not really sure what that means - if they host the account for you, or handle some extra securtity stuff, or what - but if you're just average Joe user with your own personal account, you won't need to pay it. There is no problem using Exchange with the regular personal data plan.

These facts can easily be confirmed by checking out Verizon's website, but the boys over at PCWorld are too busy making out with their iPhones to do any fact checking.

there are a couple apps out for Android that allow tethering, all free. PDAnet is the most accessible, as it allows ANYONE with an Android based phone to use it as a wireless modem over USB.

Or if you're a bit more tech savvy, like me, you can root your phone (which is just plain beneficial anyway) and install the free Wifi tether for root users app. It works like a charm, kinda sucks battery tho:-P

I regret hearing that you have decided not to activate service with us based on the pricing of our plans and services. I can certainly understand as well that you need to keep your wireless service as cost effective as possible.

Please note, Verizon Wireless is always looking for ways to enhance our products and services to better meet the needs of our customers. Your comments have been forwarded to our Management department for review and consideration. Your feedback provides us with the perfect opportunity to hear exactly what you think, and often leads to improvements you will see in the future.

I also called a couple of weeks ago and a phone rep told me (paraphrased) that I could keep my own service and deal with dropped calls all the time or pay more for better service.

So basically, Verizon thinks its service is worth more money despite providing the same level for more than any other carrier.

My t-mobile with 2 G1 phones comes with 1000 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited m2m and nights and weekends, 400 sms. My bill is an average of $130 a month.

Actually there's no hard-and-fast standard for capitalisation of the abbreviation of "bits" and "bytes". There's an IEEE recommendation on the subject, but if you follow it, you should only use "B" for bytes of unspecified size, and "o" for eight-bit bytes. Thus there's a hard core of technically literate, but perverse, souls who favour the lower case, for consistency with the SI units.